Night Out on the Town: Berlin

28 März

Woke up this morning with Marc already gone to take his exam. Tanja came by to see if I wanted to join her in getting some toiletries- Yes Ma’am!!! Since Marc’s condo is missing soap, I still needed deodorant and a razor; I was very glad that Tanja was able to take me to get these supplies. When Marc returned from his exam he treated Tanja and me to lunch. Tanja had a pizza and when she was about 3/4ths of the way through it, the waiter asked if it was too spicy and she said it was a little; next thing we knew the waiter decided to give her a whole new pizza for free! Marc was happy with that though Tanja was not quite looking forward to it as she was already pretty full. Luckily when the pizza came out, Marc helped her finish it.

Later in the afternoon, Tanja came over to Marc’s and the two of them tried to figure out where Marc should show me around the city, I am glad Tanja put her two cents worth because now I get to see Checkpoint Charlie and a few other places. 

Around 8pm Marc and I went to meet his friends, Dennis and Luke, to go to a sports bar to watch a Fußball match (football [UK] or soccer [US]). Unfortunately the first place was filled to the brim with sports fans so we went to the Europa-Center to try and find another bar. In the Europa-Centre there was the lead singer of a famous German band ‘Unheilig’, the guys looked at me and asked if I wanted to stop and see, but not ever hearing about the gy before I kind of shrugged and they laughed at my reaction. A little later when we were trying to find the bar some ladies ran past with the utmost urgency almost pushed Dennis out of the way in the escalator, then they snatched some posters that they were going to have the singer sign. So that was what my reaction should have been! We found an Irish Pub which in order to watch Fußball so we decided to go back to the ‘Zoo’ (not really at the zoo, that is just what they call the place). At the Zoo, we caught a 100 bus which went by many touristy sights mainly the ‘Siegessäule’ was of interest to me because it was an angel on a pillar in the middle of a giant roundabout. She was gorgeous to see at night.

Then we got off at a stop and walked around the Reichstag, which is a gorgeous building  that is the centre of German politics. At the top there is a glass dome which Marc and I will hopefully see on Sunday- you have to book three days in advance to go in! Then we walked to a new station that had an odd conveyor belt like slide which Marc and Dennis went down on. Of course when they looked at their hands they were filthy.

Our next stop was the Brandenburger Torr which was so far one of my favourite sights.

At some point we met this Georgian girl named Nini, who was quite a character. Nini has been in Berlin since September working as an opare but now works at the very chic store called Zara. I am not quite sure that she was telling us the whole truth because as she was walking with us she claimed that she was 21 like me, but questioned if that means I was born in 1990. Though her birthday I am pretty sure is the 29^th of December, because she started telling me all about how she is big into astrology. She also told me that she has been working the past four or five years on a medical degree. Odd character at that, she had taken a liking to talking to us that she walked probably a mile or more with us in the city. I guess at one point she was telling the guys of all the clubs she had been to and Dennis started making up club names like ‘arena’ and she would say she had been there- well that couldn’t have been true! Haha, poor girl.

During that time talking with her we past the Lustgarten, Humbolt University (where Dennis just completed his PhD), Dom, Fernsehturm (TV tower), and the ‘world time clock’ at Alexanderplatz, where we ultimately took the U-Bahn to Marc’s stop and then wearily walked the rest of the way home. It was quite the evening!